


Skate Away

by Alchemine



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Ice Skating, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 23:17:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16901667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alchemine/pseuds/Alchemine
Summary: "Out on the ice, Mildred whizzed past at breakneck speed; long, loose waves of hair flying out behind her; red-mittened hands extended for balance. She looked more as if she were continuously falling forward than actually propelling herself, Hecate thought."Miss Hardbroom and Mistress Hubble have a chat in an unlikely setting.





	Skate Away

**Author's Note:**

> Not really romance-y enough to be part of the WW 2018 Winter Fluff Event, but inspired by its Day 7 prompt, "ice skating."

Hecate didn’t go into the ordinary world often anymore, but from earlier experiences she knew that people tended to make loud, inconvenient fusses when they saw someone appear out of thin air. That was why, when she’d set out to do her errand on this frosty winter’s night, she’d taken the precaution of materialising behind a tree. It happened to be a tree dripping with white fairy lights, so her entrance wasn’t quite as discreet as she would have liked, but with the crowds and the cheery piped-in music and the other lights blazing out from every direction, she still went mostly unnoticed.

She stepped out from behind the tree’s trunk and had a look at her surroundings. Directly ahead was the ice rink, its frozen surface glowing blue and purple, a lit and decorated Christmas tree towering in its middle. People skated in circles around it, laughing, without a clue that they were, essentially, worshipping at the feet of a pagan symbol thousands of years old. Hecate’s gaze passed over the hand-holding couples and rowdy teenagers, and lingered for a moment on two parents helping their small daughter make her wobbly way across the ice, and a faint smile curved the corner of her mouth. She approved of children being well brought up, whether they were witches and wizards or not.

Turning away, she scanned the people leaning up on the railings and then the ones sitting on benches in the temporary viewing stand, where a few rows up, she spotted one half of the pair she’d been looking for. She didn’t think it prudent to transfer again in front of all these people, but she could move very quietly when she wanted to, and her target was still watching the gliding skaters, with a fond, oblivious smile of her own, when she arrived.

“ _Ahem_ ,” she said, and Julie Hubble started so hard that she nearly fell off her seat.  

"What in the—” She recognised her visitor and rethought the rest of whatever she’d been about to say. "Miss _Hardbroom_?"

Hecate gave her a chilly nod. "Mistress Hubble."

Julie’s eyes were still wide, a hand clutched to the front of her coat, and Hecate wondered whether she ought to have brought along a bottle of reviving potion; based on their previous meetings, she hadn’t expected Mistress Hubble to swoon like a Victorian governess over a minor fright. But even as she thought it, Julie pulled herself together, straightened the white knitted cap that covered most of her strawberry-blonde curls, and sat back on the bench again.

"My God, you didn’t half startle me." Her gaze travelled up the long, long length of Hecate standing over her. "Are you really here? I mean, not like an astral projection or whatever that thing is you can do?”

“I assure you, Mistress Hubble, I am present in the flesh,” Hecate said. She wondered too late whether the woman might try to touch her for verification, and what she would do then, but Julie simply nodded, accepting it.

“That’s good to know.” She paused. “That said—and not that it isn’t nice to see you, of course—but why? This isn’t exactly the sort of place I’d expect you to be.”

"’I’ve come," Hecate said, "because Mildred has been careless again. Unsurprisingly." She opened the bag slung over her shoulder and whipped out a large, spiral-bound pad of heavy textured paper. "She left her sketchbook in the library before going home. I thought she would want it over the break. Goodness knows she has her nose buried in it often enough when she ought to be busy with her schoolwork."

"Oh," Julie said, nonplussed. "Well, thank you. She'll be very glad to have it. I'm sure she'd have missed it already if she hadn’t been so excited about the skating tonight. Look, here she comes now."

Out on the ice, Mildred whizzed past at breakneck speed; long, loose waves of hair flying out behind her; red-mittened hands extended for balance. She looked more as if she were continuously falling forward than actually propelling herself, Hecate thought, but she was still on her feet and hadn't collided with anyone, at least not yet. Julie waved at her, even though Mildred couldn't possibly see it at the rate she was going, and then turned back to Hecate with a smile that was very reminiscent of the littlest Hubble in its mischief.

"Why not get some skates and give it a go, Miss Hardbroom? Mildred says you're quite the broomstick flier; maybe all those athletic skills would transfer over somehow.”  

Hecate repressed a shudder. "Broomstick flying is an elegant and traditional art, Mistress Hubble. Strapping metal blades to your feet and careening about on slippery ice is low entertainment for the mortal hoi polloi."

She expected Mistress Hubble to take umbrage at this, but Julie only laughed.

"I've always thought it was fun, but I would, wouldn't I, being one of the mortal hoi polloi and all." She indicated the empty space beside her on the bench. "If you're not going to skate, then you may as well sit down and watch a while. You’ve come all this way.”

“I should be getting back to the school,” Hecate said, suddenly uncertain.

“What have you got to do there with all the girls gone?" Julie edged over to make more space. “Go on.”

Hecate sat gingerly on the cold surface, and glared at a man below and to the right of her who appeared to disapprove of her cloak. She was sure it was as warm as his hideous, synthetic puffy coat, and certainly more stylish. He was only lucky she’d stopped there and not worn the rest of a witch’s rightful garb as well.

"You're not quite mortal, you know," she said to Julie, in a low voice so their disagreeable neighbour wouldn’t overhear. "Strictly speaking. You and Mildred are descended from—"

"An ancient witching family, yes, I know. I've had it thoroughly explained to me." Julie tucked Mildred's sketchpad under the bench and picked up an insulated cup that smelt of sweet things—chocolate, sugar, cream—with an undernote of something that Hecate’s potion-trained nose identified as alcoholic. "But I was brought up as an ordinary person, and I always will be one, just the way you'd still be a witch at heart even if you’d--you know."

"Yes," Hecate said. In general, she wasn't good at guessing anyone's thoughts except for Ada's, but in the brief silence that followed, she knew they were both thinking about Miss Mould and the Founding Stone. It was an odd but not unpleasant realisation, and she found it was rather calming to sit here with Mistress Hubble, who had an air of being able to cope with anything life threw at her.

“But perhaps you ought to learn more about your history,” she suggested. “It’s important to witches, you know, to understand where we’ve come from. There are records--not at the school, we know that now, but—”

“Mildred’s the one who really wants to learn,” Julie said. “And you’ll help her, won’t you? When the time is right.”

“Yes, of course.”

“That’s what I thought.” Julie sipped her drink. “Oh look, here she comes again. Keep going, Millie, that’s brilliant!”

Down below, Mildred heard the sound of her mother’s voice and looked up toward it with a wide, cheerful grin. An instant later, she spied Hecate in the stands and promptly fell flat on her face, where her momentum carried her along the ice until she came to a stop, thin limbs splayed in all directions like a starfish.

“Millie!” Julie jumped up, and Hecate realised she’d leapt automatically to her own feet as well, both of them side by side and looking down at Mildred’s prone body in horror. Before either of them could move any farther, Mildred popped up, looking stunned but with no signs of visible blood, and her voice floated to them.

“I’m all right! I’ll come up in a minute!” There was a pause, and then a more hesitant “Hello, Miss Hardbroom.”

“I really must go now,” Hecate said as they watched Mildred get her legs underneath her again, with a boost from a grandfatherly-looking man who had seen the whole thing happen.

“Not just yet,” Julie said firmly. “She ought to thank you in person for bringing her sketchbook to her. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I suppose not.”

By now Mildred had come off the ice and was making her way up the steps that led to the viewing stand, red-cheeked and spattered with bits of crushed ice kicked up by other people’s skate blades. She looked wary, as well she might, at finding the deputy headmistress of her school here only a few hours after she’d left, possibly to ruin her evening with a telling-off. Then her mother, who had none of Hecate’s difficulties with reading other people’s thoughts, bent down, retrieved the sketchbook and held it up so Mildred could see what the visit was about, and Mildred’s face relaxed into a relieved smile.

You could say one thing for the Hubbles, Hecate thought, watching the girl come as close to skipping as she could while wearing ice skates. They didn’t break easily.


End file.
